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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25457812">All This Devotion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanimok/pseuds/Nanimok'>Nanimok</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Alex Rider (TV 2020), Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aged-Up Alex Rider, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Eagle Strike AU, Future Yassen/Alex, Kidnapping, M/M, Retirement</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:54:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,048</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25457812</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanimok/pseuds/Nanimok</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Yassen kidnaps Alex for his own good. Eagle Strike AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Yassen Gregorovich/Alex Rider</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Alex Rider Kinkmeme</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All This Devotion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Prompt: Cray doesn't shoot Yassen in Eagle Strike and when the plane lands in Russian Yassen (going through what seems to be a midlife crisis) drags Alex along with him to his retirement.<br/>Yassen in the end of Eagle Strike felt really conflicted and half-hearted to me, so I'd like to see what it was about Alex that had him so shaken and unable to perform as usual.</p><p>Tags and warnings will be updated as the fic grows. For the nonny on the kinkmeme and my sweet bun <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ireliss/pseuds/Ireliss"> Ireliss.</a>. Please send her all the love. Alex is aged up for future plotfic reasons.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It figures that Yassen also had a bulletproof vest under his shirt. He’s a tried and true professional—he’s probably being at this job for longer than Alex has been alive. So while Cray had not expected Alex to rise up and stop him from shooting Sabina, <em>neither </em>of them expected Yassen to stand once more and shoot Cray dead with a final headshot.</p><p>A wave of emotions washes by him. Only to himself would he admit that there is a budding, nascent feeling at relief that Yassen—his one solid connection to this side of his life—isn’t dead. The feeling flitters and goes as a scream pierces the air.</p><p>Sabina has her hand on her mouth as brain matter splatters the floor behind Cray. Cray’s body flops lifeless on the ground. The next thing he knows, Yassen is holding a napkin to Sabina’s mouth, and Sabina’s fighting dampens until she’s unmoving in his arms.</p><p>“Stop!” Alex scrambles up, ready to pounce on Yassen if he makes any move of aiming the gun towards him, but “Don’t kill her.”</p><p>Alex tries to duck, but he’s jerked into Yassen’s hold. Yassen’s arm is around his neck and there—there’s a handkerchief to his mouth and nose. The fabric stifles his breathing. He jabs his elbows backwards, tries stepping on Yassen’s insteps, but Yassen clamps down on his hold. The world around him shifts, even as he struggles, spinning into never ending circles.</p><p>He’s getting dizzy and before he knows it, he’s out like a lightbulb.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The next time Alex wakes, his hands and feet are ziplocked, and Yassen is carrying him over his shoulder.</p><p>Alex immediately kicks out. Yassen’s hold doesn’t stutter. They’re alone in a parking lot, Alex realises while his stomach quickly drops, and Yassen is walking him towards a car. There are signs on the concrete columns, but they’re in Russian and Alex can’t make a single sense of the signs outside the common pictures they’re plastered with. </p><p>“Where is Sabina?” he demands, even though his throat his hurting and his panic rising. “Is she dead? Did you kill her?”</p><p>For a long while, Alex thinks Yassen will keep ignoring him, but then he says, “She’s not dead.”</p><p>“Where are you taking me?” Alex kicks out again. “Let me go!”</p><p>Yassen doesn’t answer. He keeps striding forward.</p><p>“You stupid, bloody psychopath! Get your hands off of me and let me go!” Alex almost yells. “Someone will come for me and arrest the <em>shit</em> you—so get your hands off me!”</p><p>Yassen drops him onto the ground, and Alex scoots, doing his best caterpillar expression, until he’s sitting up.</p><p>“Alex Rider,” Yassen says, and the coldness of his voice is chilling. “I don’t think you realise what kind of situation you are in. We are in Russia’s soil now. The plan will have your friend and no trace of your body. There is no one here to help you.”</p><p>Alex swallows. “You’re lying. MI6 has agents everywhere. They’ll be looking for me.”</p><p>“You listen to me, and you listen to me well, Alex. MI6 lied to you,” Yassen says plainly, kneeling in front of him. “They isolated you. They’ve disrupted your schooling enough that you might as well repeat a grade. All your friends will leave you behind because of their doing. If you have friends, that is. The one friend you had, and they made her think you were sick. Isn’t that what she said? You were sick, and maybe it was because you didn’t have parents that you had to draw attention to yourself by creating such a fantasy.”</p><p>“How did you—”</p><p>“I watch and I do my research. It’s more than MI6 can say about Cray. Your friend pitied you, Alex. She pitied you, because you wanted to be important so bad, you made up a whole world where you’re the hero and everyone is out to get you.”</p><p>“That’s not—” Alex can feel the prick of tears in his eyes. “That’s not what she said!”</p><p>Yassen’s expression didn’t stutter, but his hold did loosen a tad. “She didn’t have to say it,” Yassen says, not unkindly. “Everything else she said… it was enough.”</p><p>Alex can imagine it—the mixture of volatile emotions that crashed through Sabrina’s face when she thought he was lying to her. It made him feel small. It made him feel like a crazy idiot.</p><p>He has never hated Blunt more in that moment.</p><p>“Do you know what people call that in my line of work, little Alex?” Yassen asks. “We call that gaslighting. Very professionally done, if I may add. I know many people who would pay for that level of deception.”</p><p>“Well, do you know what people call what you’re doing, right now?” Alex says, almost shakily. “Kidnapping. You’re <em>kidnapping </em>me. They’ll come for me… They’ll find you and stop you—’”</p><p>“Because they’re looking for you, yes?” Yassen asks sharply. “Because they believed you, about Cray, and that is why you are here, all alone, with no backup to look after you.” Yassen grips his upper arms, as if he’s about to shake Alex. “But this is not the first time you’ve been alone, hasn’t it? What must their agents think? This poor, pathetic, little kid, so desperate to be involved—not knowing that the same kid has saved their lives numerous times to count. Isn’t that embarrassing? They humiliated you, Alex. And they will keep humiliating you as long as you let yourself stay under their thumbs. ”</p><p>The familiar sting of shame and anger boulders over him because bloody hell, it <em>hurt. </em>After everything he did for them, the many ways he risked his life for those bastards and the godforsaken country when he didn’t even want to in the first place. He thought that he might have gained some kind of trust, some reputability, some <em>control</em> so that people will stop ignoring him for being a stupid kid and <em>listen </em>to him for once. But they didn’t.</p><p>They might have well shot him like Cray did. It hurt less.</p><p>Alex only realises now that his chest feels constricted because he’s crying. It’s tight—he can’t stop shaking—and every breath feels like he’s fighting against the pressure of the atmosphere. His shoulders shake, and suddenly—suddenly, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. Tears are falling, he can hardly see where he’s going, and there are arms wrapping themselves all around him but he can barely register it from how bad his body is shaking.</p><p>He’s alone, he’s hurt, his heart feels like it’s skinned raw, and nobody <em>cares </em>unless it stops them from using him. No one in MI6 actually cares about the Alex Rider who likes video games, dirt biking, and watching movies. They don’t care about the Alex Rider who lets his mouth run more than his legs does. They only care if Alex is strong enough to be at their disposal and at their convenience.</p><p>For the first time in a while, Alex lets the reality of his situation settle heavily into his bones.</p><p>Yassen holds him as he cries. He blubbers and sobs, and Yassen doesn’t move as his wipes his snot into his coat. How kind of his captor to comfort Alex as he’s falling apart—and how sick is his life that Yassen is the only one to do so apart from Jack.</p><p>When Alex has worked what seems to be the worst of his crying spiel out of his systems, he pinches Alex’s chin up so that their eyes meet.</p><p>Yassen’s eyes are pale blue, like the sky they were flying in, and Alex feels untethered to the ground.</p><p>“They have lied to you so many times, you have started to think that it was normal, haven’t you?” Yassen asks, almost softly. “Have I ever lied to you? In the number of times we have come across each other, have I done any of the horrible things your employers have done to you?”</p><p>“You—” Alex breaks off into sniffles. “You sent me into a ring with a raging bull.”</p><p>Yassen purses his lips, before conceding into a nod. “I did.”</p><p>“Are you—” Taking a big breath, Alex says, “Are you even sorry for that?”</p><p>Blinking, Yassen says without a trace of remorse, “I didn’t want to kill you.”</p><p>“Fucking hell,” Alex whispers. “You actually believe that. You actually believe that load of tosh, don’t you? But why? Why save me at all? I didn’t ask for it! I didn’t even want to hurt the bull!”</p><p>It occurs to Alex, a little distantly, that he’s throwing a tantrum about Yassen going out of his way to avoid harming him directly, but considering that Yassen made him fight a <em>bull, </em>he figures he deserves answers. He feels like he’s been operating blind all his life and he’s tired of it.</p><p>“I knew your father.”</p><p>His breath catches in his throat. “W—What?”</p><p>“I knew your father.” Yassen pulls away to trace the scar at the side of his neck with his index finger. “I met him when I was eighteen or nineteen. We worked together. This scar is because he saved my life. ”</p><p>His voice is quiet. “You worked with my dad?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Alex hiccups.  “Was he a spy?”</p><p>“Hmm…” Rustling through the pocket of his coat, Yassen brings out a pack of travel tissues. With one hand, he softly dabs Alex’s face dry. “A spy… a killer… He was a man of many skills. He had many names and many faces.”</p><p>“No!” Alex shakes his head. “He can’t be a killer! He worked for MI6!”</p><p>Yassen gives him a reproachful look, like Alex should know better. And Alex isn’t sorry—he’s <em>not—</em></p><p>Taking his chin back into his hand again, Yassen keeps his face still as he wipes Alex’s face once more. “Do you really believe that MI6 has never killed a single person in their whole existence? Hundreds of people looking after the interest of one country and one country only out of the very many?”</p><p>Alex stays mulishly silent.</p><p>“He was the best at what he did,” Yassen says. “He taught me many things. Even if he did work for MI6, I met him while he was undercover in Scorpia. He was a trusted agent there. Do you know how many people he would have had to kill to become a trusted agent in Scorpia? He certainly didn’t hesitate with his kills when he was teaching me.”</p><p>Alex—Alex can’t believe what he’s hearing. It feels like the floor has dropped out from under him.</p><p>Yassen thumbs the corner of Alex’s eyes and it’s almost—gentle. “You want answers. You deserve them. If you stay with me, I will give you answers.”</p><p><em>How do I know you’re not lying? </em>Alex almost asks, but he stops himself. Because Yassen has done many things to him, but lying isn’t one of them.</p><p>“So what?” Alex swallows. “You’re kidnapping me because you’re trying to repay my dad for saving your life?”</p><p>“You can only out-bike a blanket of bullets a certain number of times.” Yassen shifts, and this time, instead of tossing Alex over his shoulder, Yassen lifts Alex into a bridal carry. “Continue working for MI6 and that number halves exponentially.”</p><p>“Haven’t you heard,” Alex mutters. “I don’t work for MI6. I work for the Royal General Bank.”</p><p>“Of course.” Yassen juggles him as he opens the car door. “My mistake.”</p><p>“I’ll escape,” Alex announces, as Yassen settles him on the front seat. “Once you answer my questions, I’ll go.”</p><p>Alex ignores how the words seems clumsy and dull from his mouth. How it seems so empty and insincere.</p><p>Yassen throws a blanket over his body, tucking it around his neck. It hides all the zip ties, and makes it seem like he’s gearing up for a nap in the car. He strokes the back of his fingers against Alex’s cheeks, and Alex is too exhausted to turn his head away.</p><p>“One day at a time, Alex,” Yassen says.</p><p>Then, he closes the car door, and he slides into the driver seat. Alex closes his eyes to the sound of Yassen buckling up. The engine hums, and within minutes, the wheels of their car crunches against the gravelly roads.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>MI6 is so mean to Alex ;_;</p></blockquote></div></div>
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